Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

A/N: Edited – 2012 October 09

Not for the life of Hinata could she figure out why the boy returned. She was almost positive that she had bored him to tears the last time that he came. He didn't ask her to pour him tea or sake. He didn't ask her to dance. He didn't ask her to sing (thank Heavens; she was a horrible singer since her voice sounded dangerously close to a cat warbling as her older geisha sister so helpfully pointed out). He did not ask her to play the shamisen or the flute. He did not ask her to play any games. Even when she realized that he would not beg her to indulge him, she sought his indulgence and he still refused. The boy had spent only a few hours at the Ichimokari Teahouse and already he was privately nicknamed by the geisha as Mr. Sourpuss after Hinata had confided to Nayako that a lime would look at the boy and turn sour. If she was surprised that he had returned, she was flabbergasted that he specifically requested her company. Hinata however, was quite the busy apprentice geisha. She could not simply up and leave the current party just for some boy. She would be risking her reputation and her sister's wrath if she were to do that. Besides, the boy could wait an hour or two. He was so rude; he hadn't even spoken to her last time! What was she to do this time? Sit and let him watch her for the next hour? No, let him wait.

After Hinata and three other apprentice geisha spent two hours in the main banquet hall entertaining a group of businessmen, Hinata finally and politely excused herself to call upon the boy. She knelt down and slid open the door, her head tilted downwards as she stepped inside, then slid the door shut behind her. She bowed as low as was possible with her neck still straight and only the tips of her fingers touching the mat.

"I humbly apologize for keeping you waiting, Sasuke-san."

Sasuke did not say anything for a few seconds and Hinata's neck was beginning to ache in that position. She knew that he was punishing her for keeping him waiting but she could do nothing but wait until he told her to rise. The command came in the form of a barely audible, "Hn." She got up and smiled faintly at him, but did not dare look him in the eye; her eyes would betray how annoyed she was by his petulant attitude. She walked over to him and sat opposite him, the low table between them, except that he was seated on the windowsill overlooking the autumnal night sky.

"Would you like me to pour you some tea, Sasuke-san?" No response and Hinata had to physically remind herself not to roll her eyes. "Or would you prefer some sake?" Again, she got no reply. So far, it looked like an hour of him not watching her, not answering her, not acknowledging her existence, not doing anything at all. Sasuke was propped up against the window with one foot dangling off the side of the window seat. He was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt which was open at the torso. He wore black pants with some sort of blue cloth hanging from halfway up his stomach to his knees. He also wore a purple rope belt around his waist, tied in a bow, in which he carried a sword. He didn't wear any headband of any hidden ninja villages, but Hinata could tell that Sasuke was a ninja. She had been in the presence of ninja before. Most of them were just like the businessmen she and her older sister entertained – just looking for a pretty girl to spend an evening with. They were ordinary people except for the fact that a lot of the times geisha only entertained them once or twice. Too many of them never returned to the teahouses because they couldn't return at all. Abnormally high mortality rates were to be expected in the way of the ninja. Ninja did not really scare her, especially the blond ninja she met a month ago – Naruto-san, whom she had nicknamed Mr. Sunshine. But this boy, Mr. Sourpuss, made her feel...uneasy. She couldn't quite put a name to the feeling she got when she first met him a month ago. He arrived five minutes after Naruto-san left and he looked out of place like a lemon in a bowl of strawberries. Still, she had to entertain him. But throughout all of her efforts, she kept getting a strange feeling; a feeling as if something bad was about to happen.

"You can pour me some tea if you like." Sasuke suddenly said and Hinata flinched at the abrupt sound of his voice in the still room. Hinata nodded and was surprised when he slid off of the window seat to come sit opposite her. He rested both his hands on his laps and calmly watched her as she replaced the teapot back onto the table. Her small hands slid across the table to feel for the cutlery. She was just about to take up a spoon when Sasuke said, "Let me help you." He moved too quickly, almost clumsily and ended up knocking the spoon and the saucer off the table, but Hinata caught it in time. It was his fault, yet she apologized.

"I am so clumsy, Sasuke-san, please forgive me."

"Forgive you for hiding the fact that you can see?"

Hinata stopped and looked up to meet his unusually black eyes. She stilled her breathing and lowered her eyes in the most coquettish way her older sister had taught her.

"You should not tease me so, Sasuke-san. I would give anything to be able to rest my eyes upon you."

"Cut the nonsense, Geisha!" He slammed his fist on the table making the china jump and Hinata's heart tremble. At that moment she was terrified of the boy in front of her. He couldn't have been any more than fourteen, but he had struck fear into her. She stood still and if something had brushed against her at that very moment she would have screamed or fainted. "Everyone in Kumogakure comes to see the fair-eyed blind geisha. But I've been watching you. You are not blind, are you? Answer me."

Hinata closed her eyes and stilled her breathing. Interestingly enough an image of another ninja came to mind, an image of Mr. Sunshine, Naruto-san. She spoke to that boy for five minutes a month ago and he made such an impression on her that she was recalling him in a time like this when she should have been calling on God or whichever higher power that was willing to get her out of this mess. Be stronger and better, that's what Naruto-san said that he had to do. Hinata knew that her older sister, Nayako, would have somehow skilfully woven an interesting story out of air and would probably have had Sasuke-san confessing that it was really he who was blind; Nayako was that good. But Hinata was not her older sister. She just had to try to be. Now what was a good-enough lie?

"Don't even think about lying to me." Hinata looked up at him, her breath hitched. There was a moment when the two simply stood there staring into each other's face. He had a quiet and intense intimidation to him. An eternity could have passed as far as Hinata was concerned. Finally, after a while, Sasuke spoke up. "You're not blind, but you can't see well, can't you?"

Hinata considered lying again, but recognized that it would be senseless to do that. This boy seemed to be reading all of her ploys in advance.

"No, I'm not blind. I can see v-v-vague and f-f-f-f-fuzzy outlines of things - I knew that the cup fell because I could see a small, white b-b-b-blur tipping off the table. I know that I am speaking to Sasuke-san because I can see a blur of your hair a-a-and of your sword and clothes. I can barely make out the lines on m-my hand." Her voice was soft, almost above a whisper, tears were pooling in her eyes.

"Can you see my chakra?"

"What? No."

"Hn. I believe you. I'm pouring chakra into my eyes to activate my Sharingan, but you are not affected by it because you cannot see it properly."

Hinata leaned forward a bit and squinted and the tears she was trying so hard not to let show spilled over onto her cheeks. Great, now her makeup was ruined. She patted her cheeks with a handkerchief that she pulled from inside her kimono sleeve. She could barely make out that his eyes were red now, but to be honest they also looked kind of black and maybe a little bit brown to her. She'd be a horrible witness in a police line-up. Sasuke sighed heavily and passed a hand through his hair.

"Why haven't you gotten glasses?"

"It would b-b-be unattractive on a geisha, so I was forbid-d-d-den. Also, my eyesight has only det-t-teriorated over the years. Glasses would be considered a w-waste of money."

"Where were you born?"

"I-I-I-I was b-b-born in Kumogakure's hospital th-th-thirteen years ago. My birth date is D-D-December 27th." Lord, how she wished she could stop stuttering! She sounded absolutely ridiculous, but at this point in time Hinata was so scared she was ready to confess to a crime she did not commit.

"You don't have to be scared. I've decided not to kill you."

"Oh." Hinata said and later thought that even if she had said nothing it still wouldn't have been as inadequate as 'oh.' Her body did relax, however.

"I came to the teahouse a month ago because I thought that you were someone else. I thought that I could have used your eyes. Unfortunately for me and luckily for you, you are a simple half-blind civilian."

Yes, lucky for me, Hinata cynically thought. Why the hell would he want her half-blind eyes, she thought wildly. There's nothing special about them besides their colour.

"Have you always been able to see or rather not see like that?"

"Yes. My f-first memory is of a blurry man." I even dreamt in a blur, she thought morosely.

"You've never been able to see clearly?"

"No."

"Hn. I suppose you cannot miss what you never had."

"That's not true." She muttered and wished that she hadn't. She wished that there was something to busy herself with. Why couldn't he ask her to dance or play the flute or better yet, ask her to leave?

"Explain yourself."

Hinata closed her eyes briefly and remembered Naruto saying that he was going to be Hokage someday. She remembered his joke about his current Hokage. He was such a confident and fearless boy. Why couldn't she be like that? She could be, she supposed, if she just worked harder and stronger, like Naruto-san. She re-opened her eyes and tried to imagine that she was speaking to Naruto.

"Well, even though you've never had something or you lost something, you know that you should have had it. You start to want it so much that you imagine it. You imagine it to the point where it feels real, but it's not. It's the definition of quasi – similar, but not quite. When you realize that it's the quasi reality that you've made up, you accept it, but you miss it. You miss the quasi-reality and yearn for the reality that could never be yours."

Sasuke said nothing for a while and Hinata wished that she could have sucked her head into her shoulders.

"I know what you mean." He responded after a long while. It was so long that Hinata almost forgot what he was talking about and had to blink several times to remember. "Hn. You forgot what we were talking about, didn't you?"

Hinata blushed and tilted her head in shame as she busied herself with pouring tea for him. She was no longer feeling a pressure of fear from him. She only felt a longing for time to pass by quickly.

"Are you the top apprentice geisha?"

"No. I did not win the award for that last month."

"I thought that you geisha were stupid women, fawning over men in an attempt to fulfil their fantasies of the perfect subservient women."

You sure know how to make a girl feel good Sasuke-san, she cynically thought but only tightly smiled as an acknowledgement to his statement.

"You're not stupid, though." He continued and Hinata mumbled a polite thank you. "I haven't had an intelligent conversation with a girl in quite a while."

"Thank you, Sasuke-san."

"Do you read?"

"Yes."

"Street signs don't count." Hinata stretched her lips tightly to keep from showing any sign of irritation at his comment. Sasuke gave a faint smirk, too faint for someone with 20/20 vision to see it, so obviously Hinata missed it completely.

"Yes, I read novels and plays and poems in Braille or sometimes my sister reads to me."

"Do you want to be the best geisha?"

Hinata tried her best to hide her confusion not so much at the obvious answer to his question, but more so that his questions kept jumping from topic to topic.

"Yes, of course."

"You should strive to be the best. I only associate with the best. You can become the best if you play on your strengths – your eyes, your beauty, your intelligence and your grace." Hinata knew that she had just received a compliment, but his voice was so emotionless it was like listening to a court verbatim reporter read back the transcript of a testimony.

"Thank you very much, Sasuke-san. I shall endeavour not to shame you."

He said nothing, only sipping on his tea. After a while, when her discomfort reached a peak, he said suddenly,

"Dance for me."

"If that is what you wish, I'll fetch a geisha to play the drums or the shamisen for us." Hinata rose, but Sasuke stopped her with a question.

"Can't you dance if the song is played on the radio?"

Hinata paused, thinking. She desperately wanted another girl in here.

"The dance is better accompanied by live music."

"Can you not dance to a recorded song? What sort of a geisha are you? Geisha are supposed to be like ninja in the sense that they should be adaptable."

He was staring her down and Hinata wanted to cry from her anger and disappointment. She should have been able to sway his mind, she thought morosely, but nothing came to her.

"Of course I can dance to any song, Sasuke-san. I'll tell the maid to fetch me a radio."

She walked over the door, feeling his eyes on her back. She wondered what he was thinking. For most men they would be wondering what was underneath her kimono. They'd be going wild over the two strips of bare flesh at the nape of her neck that was not covered by makeup or the kimono. She remembered that she did not get that sense from Naruto-san. Naruto-san had an aura of innocence about him that she liked. Sasuke-san had an aura of darkness that she mistrusted. She quietly told the maid that she needed a radio that could play tape and she also asked for the tape of one of the more popular songs. The maid returned unnecessarily soon for Hinata's liking, but Hinata thanked her anyway and turned to find an outlet for the radio as a way to buy time. She was concentrating so much on finding an outlet for the radio that Hinata took a moment before her brain registered the strange sound in the room as Sasuke giving a brief and barely audible snort of laughter. She turned to him.

"By pure will power alone you'll make a plug appear from that battery operated radio."

Hinata looked down at the radio and indeed it was battery operated. She felt so ashamed, but she had to admit that that was ridiculous and she ended up smiling; her first genuine smile for the evening. She gently rested the radio in the corner and pressed play as she removed a fan from the sleeves of her kimono and assumed her dancing position.

Hinata danced for Sasuke but she couldn't tell if he was interested in the dance or not. He didn't seem like somebody that cared about dance, but he did ask her to dance... It was a slow song, with carefully controlled steps and intricately subtle foot and hand movements. From a tap of her foot to a twitch in her baby finger; each movement meant something, telling a story of a princess willing to do anything to balance the relationship she had with an outcast and respecting her familial duties. There was an intensity in the air like that of a plucked guitar string waiting to be released.

With a sudden and unexpected movement, she spun quickly and hid her face behind the opened fan, leaving her eyes visible to him. He stared at her as if he were staring at his shoes – with no particular interest whatsoever. The dance finished and he didn't compliment her or say thank you. Hinata wondered whether she had disappointed him. She was an excellent dancer if nothing else. She returned to her seat, a bit unsure of what to say to him or what to do. She wished Nayako was there! This was Hinata's most difficult client yet.

"You can be very beguiling, but you need to work on it." Sasuke said to her. He had this far away look in his eyes like he was thinking of something. Hinata was confused. Why couldn't his hour with her end?

Sasuke suddenly rose and Hinata rose with him. He was taller than her by a couple of inches and he was taller than Naruto-san. He was not as good company as Naruto-san, however. He slid open the door and stepped out into the hall where she accompanied him. She walked behind him with her kimono fluttering like wind in the leaves, following the blurry outline of his back. Seeing was getting more and more difficult and she slowed considerably, even though she knew the teahouse like the back of her hand. He walked all the way to the exit of the teahouse and the mistress of the teahouse thanked him and begged him to come again. He ignored her as he paid the bill. Instead, he turned to Hinata and said,

"I think that you can be very useful to me, Hinata. I have some business to take care of in Otogakure. I'll be back in about a month's time."

Hinata couldn't very well tell him that if she never saw him again it'd be too soon, so she smiled politely and bowed deeply. He turned and walked off. Hinata rose and poked her head out of the teahouse and watched him disappear into the night. Her encounter with the mysterious ninja, Sasuke, left her with a frown on her face. What plan did Sasuke have for her, she wondered. She turned and looked up the other side of the street. Two out of focus figures were coming toward the teahouse, but she'd recognize that orange and yellow blur anywhere. Jiraiya-sama and Naruto-san stepped out suddenly under the streetlamp as they headed straight for the teahouse.